Coldwater Revenge by James Ross (e novels to read online TXT) 📗

Tom was tempted to suggest the scientist’s wife, but checked himself.

“Mossad!” the professor hissed. “No doubt with the connivance of your government.”

“Your pal must have been working on something pretty exciting,” said Tom.

“We’ll never know.” Hassad stepped from behind his desk, allowing his palm to trail over a small paper parcel that had been partly covered by a stack of files on the edge of the desk. Tom noted the row of brightly colored stamps as the package disappeared into the pocket of the professor’s jacket.

“And now comes some provincial American policeman who blithely demands that I betray the identities and research of similarly vulnerable colleagues. No doubt he’ll threaten me if I don’t comply. No thank you, Mr. Morgan. I will not.”

Tom’s reply was precise and his voice modulated. “And if there’s a connection between your dead colleague and the man whose photo I just showed you?”

Hassad dismissed the suggestion with an impatient wave of his hand. “You’re fishing.” He moved toward the door. “Now if you will excuse me, Mr. Morgan, I must prepare a lecture.” It was a dismissal.

“One last question, then. Humor me.”

Hassad sighed. “If I must.”

“When were you last in the United States?”

Hassad hesitated. His answer, when it came, was a curt and peevish, “This morning.”

“For what purpose?”

“A personal matter.”

Tom counted silently to ten, then twenty.

“To see my dentist,” Hassad spat.

CHAPTER 19

Tom grabbed a handful of departmental brochures on his way out of the building, and then strolled over to l’Parc Lafontaine hoping to bring order to the jumbled impressions of the morning: an address for a company named Ulabs that turned out to be grocery store with no customers; its owner, a university professor named Hassad, who did nothing when a surprise visitor claiming to be the NeuroGene owner turned out to be an impostor, and who claimed not to recognize Billy Pearce’s photo, but appeared to know that the man in it was dead.

The normal response of a healthy mind, Tom knew, is to provide an answer to a direct question. It may be a lie, or even nonsense, but a clear direct question will almost always prompt an answer. He had resuscitated many a dying deposition by repeatedly triggering that mental reflex, when someone less persistent would have dropped a handful of dirt and called it a day.

Who is Hassad?

Someone who knew Billy Pearce, but doesn’t want to admit it. Who sends stuff to a tiny Coldwater biotechnology company, but doesn’t want to say what. Who spent enough time in England to pick up an accent, but at an age too advanced to get it pitch-perfect.

What about the package he palmed?

Incoming, not outgoing. Those weren’t Canadian stamps.

And what about Father Gauss’ not so subtle hint: “It may be that I know quite a bit about Billy Pearce that our Sheriff doesn’t. But there’s little I can tell…?” Gauss wasn’t going to violate a confidence. But if he had information that could help solve a murder, didn’t another ethical obligation came into play?

Questions continued to pop into Tom’s head almost at random. What could Billy have been carrying that might have got him killed? How can anyone characterize a Wall Street deal maker as low energy? What happens to my high-powered career if I don’t get back to New York soon to save it?

Lost in thought, Tom almost missed the familiar profile moving fast along the sidewalk beside the park. Throwing bills at a push cart vendor selling college logo-ed sportswear, Tom grabbed a UQAM cap and broke into a jog to catch up. If Hassad looked around, maybe his tail would appear as just another fish in the school, so to speak.

Striding briskly through the spider web of streets and alleys east of the park, the quarry never paused or looked back. Minutes of twists and turns later, he entered the same grocery store that Tom had visited earlier. Sounds of a whacking great argument poured from the store. Then the disputants came onto the street, with the grocer who claimed not to know a Professor Hassad screaming loud and long at him before abruptly breaking off and dashing down an alley. Hassad took off in the opposite direction. Tom followed.

South across l’rue Rêne-Levesque and down a series of unmarked streets that ancient memory told Tom were near the outskirts of Chinatown. Turns and more turns, then a brief glimpse of Hassad disappearing into a storefront mosque. Tom sensed that he was back in the neighborhood of the grocery store, but he couldn’t be sure. Rabbits run in circles, Tommy, when they sense the hunter. The idlers outside the mosque stared at the man wearing a student’s sports cap. One of them glared and then disappeared inside. Tom stuffed the cap in his pocket, but the idlers continued to stare. He backed away and looked for a street sign that would identify the location of the rabbit hole. Joe would want to know.

* * *

The rental car remained unbooted where Tom had left it. The philosophy tome on the front seat was undisturbed as well, though Tom had forgotten to lock the passenger side door. Father Gauss’ parting gift might fall into the category of ‘read later when you feel like it’, and have nothing to do with the current dramas of their respective lives. But instinct and experience told Tom that was unlikely. He took the priest’s letter from the book and reread it, thinking it might help. It didn’t. But then he noticed the digits scrawled on the back. He reached into his pocket for the paper with the numbers he’d copied in the internet café earlier that morning. The seven digit sequences all began with the same three-digits.

Father Gauss was in Montreal.

Tom switched on his cell phone for the first time in days and dialed the number scribbled on the back of Gauss’ letter. A woman answered.

“Couvent de San Gabriel.”

“Père Gauss, s’il vous plait,” he